


something other than what it is

by fuelonthefire



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Billy Hargrove vs. Emotions, Blow Jobs, Enemies to Lovers, Established It's-Not-a-Relationship, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Pre-Season/Series 03, Salacious Consumption of Ice Cream, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:01:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21553492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuelonthefire/pseuds/fuelonthefire
Summary: Billy tries to ensure that sex with Steve stays pleasantly dirty and straightforward. Predictably, Steve tramples all over Billy’s boundaries and leaves him dealing with unfamiliar feelings that are way outside of his comfort zone.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 48
Kudos: 411





	something other than what it is

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly set shortly before season three (as Billy and Steve have their season three jobs in the latter half of the story).

Billy's eyes clench shut as his body thrums with pleasure. Steve is buried deep inside him, sighing out breathy little moans, and Billy has this bizarre, twisting _ache_ in his ribcage. He grits his teeth against it, gripping the bed sheet so that his nails dig into his palm through the thin material.

“Harder,” he goads, voice muffled by the pillow. “Is that all you’ve got?” 

Steve takes the bait, of course, grunting as he pushes in with a sharp jerk of his hips. He winds his fingers tight in Billy’s hair. “Better, asshole?”

Billy shivers at the brutality, gasping at the sting in his scalp and the stretch in his neck. “ _Fuck_ yeah.” His dick is rubbing on the mattress, the feeling more of a tease than anything else. Still, he is somehow perilously close to coming just the same, his thighs shaky and his balls tight. 

Steve speeds up like he always does at the very end, babbling barely audible curses before burying himself in Billy one final time, fingers digging into his hips. Steve holds still for a long moment, a dead weight panting hot and sweaty against Billy’s neck. Billy waits, counting to ten in his head, biting his lip to stop himself from asking for anything.

Finally, Steve pulls at Billy’s shoulder, urging him to turn around. Billy goes with it, flipping over onto his back, his dick stiff and leaking on his stomach. He watches as Steve ties off the condom and chucks it aside. The feeling of his lubed up fist around Billy’s cock is such a relief that Billy trembles, hating himself for it. He fights the urge to thrust up into Steve’s grip, traitorous hips giving a tiny jerk. 

“Jesus,” Steve says, eyes heavy-lidded and cheeks pink from orgasm.

“I don’t have all day, Harrington,” Billy manages, voice rough. “Get the fuck on with it.”

And Steve does, working him like he knows some secret blueprint that unlocks sensations capable of melting Billy into boneless surrender. Steve stares down like he’s mesmerized, moving his hand faster. It’s the way he looks as much as the slick tightness of his hand that tips Billy over the edge—he drinks in Steve’s flushed face and messy hair, the sweat in the dip of his collarbone, his parted lips, and _fuck_. Billy comes all over his chest and Steve’s fingers, a long, low groan caught in his throat.

His pulse hammers in his ears and he tries to catch his breath, tries to hide the way his chest is heaving. Steve flops down next to him, half on top of him, loose-limbed and blissed out. He kisses Billy’s cheek, leaves a sloppy wet smudge. “You’re so good,” he mumbles, slinging an arm across Billy’s waist.

Billy freezes, staring at the ceiling. The words ring in his head like a bell.

After a beat, he throws Steve’s arm off, twists away and slips out of bed. “Gotta clean up,” he says absently, picking up his trail of clothes. He can’t meet Steve’s eyes. 

—

It all started months ago, back when Steve wouldn’t stop _looking_. He’d step into the showers after basketball practice, and Billy would catch that freeze-frame moment when Steve’s gaze briefly flickered downwards, breaking the unspoken locker room rules. And when he’d glance up, furtive and guilty, Billy would stare right at him with a deliberate smirk. _I see you_. Harrington would blush all the way down his body and stare blankly at the wall until Billy left.

The looks were foreplay, and the looks turned to casual touches—seemingly innocent, plausibly accidental. Yet, Billy could see the way a subtle tremor ran through Steve’s limbs when he manufactured an excuse to brush against Billy’s shoulder. It made him feel powerful, and the power turned him on. He thought about it at night, jerking off to the idea of pushing King Steve to his knees.

Despite the slowly building sense of inevitability, their first time took Billy by surprise. It happened when he was in a dark upstairs bedroom at some random house party, rooting through a jumble of jackets to scrounge an extra cigarette from someone’s pocket. He turned around, and there was Harrington in the doorway, ridiculous hair backlit by the hallway lamp. 

Billy squinted at him. “Hey, bitch.”

“Hey yourself,” Steve said. Arms folded and mouth a straight line, he looked like he was someone’s mom waiting to ask _what time Billy called this_.

“You look even dumber than usual.”

Steve snorted, a bit unsteady on his feet. “Yeah? Well, _you_ look...”

“Fine as hell? Like someone who could easily kick your ass one-handed?”

“...like trash,” Steve said, a retort so lame it almost sounded triumphant.

Billy just laughed, unbothered. “Why’re you coming up here to lurk, anyway? Not enough little kids for you downstairs?”

“I don’t need this shit, Hargrove.”

“I’m just trying to make conversation, not asking you to drop your panties.”

Steve scowled. “Yeah, well, I don’t want to make conversation with you.”

Before Billy could form a comeback he had the breath knocked out of him, Steve pushing him up against the wall with a thump, hands grabbing at the material of his shirt. They were so close that Steve’s body heat was palpable, his breath warm on Billy’s lips.

Billy’s fists clenched, ready to punch, and then Steve surged forward and just _kissed_ him, forceful and hungry, tongue licking into his mouth and teeth scraping his bottom lip. It felt like an act of aggression as much as lust and Billy let himself get lost in it for five seconds—ten, fifteen, twenty—before he grabbed Steve by the shoulders, flipping them around and using Steve’s body to slam the door closed. With their hips pressed together, Billy could feel the hardening line of Steve’s cock through his jeans, thick and demanding against him. It made him ravenous, made him fist a hand in Steve’s hair and suck a bruise into his neck.

Steve arched into it, throwing his head back and baring his throat in a way that had Billy throbbing at his zipper. It felt obscene to see the mark start to bloom in the dim light, and that obscenity just made Billy harder, made him want to ruin Steve’s creamy skin with suck marks and bruises. 

Steve pulled him into a kiss again, dirty and urgent, slipping a thigh between his legs. Billy found himself grinding into it automatically, the friction just the right side of painful. He could come just like this, he realized, half ashamed and half thrilled—could come in his pants just rubbing against Harrington’s leg like a dog. Steve leaned back slightly and slid a hand down between them, cupped Billy through his jeans and let out this soft groan like someone was touching _him_.

Billy pushed into Steve’s hand. “You want it, pretty boy?”

“Yeah, I want it, _fuck_ ,” Steve breathed, words slurring together slightly. “God.”

They grappled with their clothes and pushed everything just far enough out of the way to make it work, their hands clumsy and urgent. The party raged on downstairs, the muffled thump of bass and drunken singing floating up. They jerked each other off with spit-slicked fists, knuckles knocking together as they cursed and grunted into each other’s open mouths.

“Do you like this?” Billy panted. “The thought that someone—anyone—could stumble up here and get in? Could see you with your big dick out, begging me to make you come?”

“I’m not begging, jackass,” Steve gritted out, and Billy deftly swiped his thumb over the head of Steve’s cock, mouthing at his neck again. “Oh fuck, don’t stop, ah—”

“You were saying—” Billy managed to quip, though his knees felt weak and he was vibrating, every nerve hypersensitive. If he wasn’t careful, the slightest extra touch could make him blow his load. Steve tightened his grip, twisted his wrist a little, and Billy’s eyes rolled back in his head. He mimicked the action, figuring out what Steve liked, and Steve let out this breathless wine, thrust into Billy’s grip all hard and desperate.

“Shh,” Billy whispered, pressing his left hand against Steve’s lips. Steve stared at him, eyes black with drugged-up arousal, and sucked two fingers into his mouth with hollowed cheeks. And that’s all it took—the wet heat of Steve’s velvety tongue on his skin and the sudden, searing knowledge that he’d get to fuck Steve’s mouth someday. Billy shuddered and came, pushing his fingers in deeper. Steve came after a few more rough strokes, moaning low and soft as he flooded Billy’s hand and spurted a little on his clothes. 

Billy wiped both hands on Steve’s shirt almost immediately, wrinkling his nose. He gave Steve a businesslike smack on the arm for good measure. Steve gaped at him, wrecked and baffled and so _offended_ , flush high on his cheeks.

“See you around, Harrington,” Billy said with a nod, straightening his clothes and heading to the bathroom. 

Even now, he still remembers that impulse to laugh the moment he left the room—remembers that manic sound rising in his throat, giddy and ridiculous.

—

They’ve been fucking for months now, having blisteringly hot sex mixed with a smattering of carefully shallow conversation. It’s simple and practical—so dirty that it’s clean. It works for Billy. Or, at least, it was supposed to.

The other night was weird, Billy thinks—when Steve called him _good_ and made that gross attempt to cuddle him. They must have been under the influence of dumb hormones that want to ensure his body has easy, regular access to sex. Didn’t they cover that in some biology class? Hormones don’t know Steve doesn’t mean shit to him, but they’re nothing a cold shower can’t get rid of.

It helps that he doesn’t let Steve kiss him on the mouth now. He has ducked aside and grimaced often enough that he’s trained Steve not to try, and it’s a relief. It feels awkward and weird to kiss someone when there’s no easy excuse for it, Billy thinks. Kissing is for lovers—for _girls_. It’s the entry fee you pay to coax someone into believing you care, and it’s not something you need to do when that person is happy to bend over for you any day of the week.

Thankfully, everything is always so damn efficient when Steve knocks on Billy’s door in the perfect, precious hours when he’s home alone in the late afternoon, and Billy has no reason to think that anything fundamental has changed. Today, Steve doesn’t even stop to say hello before he’s dragging Billy into the utility room by his belt, pushing his jeans and boxers down in one rough shove.

Steve sinks to his knees, mouthing at Billy’s inner thigh and then licking a soft, wet stripe up the sensitive underside of is rapidly hardening cock. It feels exquisitely gentle, and a shaky, rough moan catches in Billy's chest before he can stop it. Panic sparks in the back of his skull and his body jerks.

“No, I—get the fuck up here,” he says, hauling Steve back up to his feet. He bites at Steve’s neck, the scrape of his teeth almost cruel.

Billy swaps their positions gets to his knees instead, providing tight, brutal suction that has Steve rock hard and moaning in seconds. Billy looks up—sees Steve’s mouth hanging open and his brow furrowed—and takes him into his throat, as far as he can manage. Steve is _hung_ , and when Billy chokes on him, his mind whites out and his consciousness narrows down to pure sensation. Steve, hot and pulsing in his mouth, a hand curled into his hair. Billy digs his fingers into Steve’s hips, presses into the bones just a little too hard, feels how Steve’s dick swells on his tongue.

Steve groans, a desperate and almost incredulous sound as though he can’t quite process how good it feels. When he comes, Billy swallows reflexively and his cock twitches between his legs. He didn’t realize it would turn him on so much—the bitter, sharp taste of Steve on his tongue.

“Oh, Jesusfuckingchrist,” Steve says all in a rush, one hand absent-mindedly stroking the back of Billy’s head. “You’re unbelievable.” And the oddest thing happens—Billy feels an itch and an ache like he wants to feel Steve’s _arms_ wrapped around him. It’s horrifying. He feels hot and agitated, something boiling over inside him as his eyes sting.

“Here, let me,” Steve says, clumsily reaching to help Billy stand.

Billy is already going soft, suddenly feeling like he doesn’t belong in his skin. “It’s cool,” he says as sits back on his heels and fumbles to pull his jeans back up, every inch of him smarting with embarrassment and confusion. “I’m gonna be late for work.”

He’s already on his feet and out in the hallway unlocking the front door by the time Steve catches up to him, belt hanging loose. “What’s wrong?” Steve blurts. “Did I—I mean, did you not want to me—”

“You did great, Harrington,” Billy says, words dripping with sarcasm. “You came, you saw, you jizzed. You can go.”

“What’s the matter with you?” Steve snaps. “I can’t keep up with this bullshit.”

“ _My_ bullshit? You’re the one who keeps trying to give me compliments and braid my fucking hair.”

“Is that what this is about? I’m being too _nice_ to you?”

Billy flinches. “This isn’t about anything,” he says, opening the door and gesturing toward it. “There’s no _this_. I’ve just gotta get ready for my shift.”

Steve gives him one last, disbelieving stare and walks out. He doesn’t look back.

—

Later that night, Billy lifts weights until his arms shake, unaccountably furious. Fucking Steve is supposed to be fun, but after today it’s like he has a rotten hangover. He felt utterly foolish when he kicked Steve out this afternoon, and if he isn’t having a good time anymore then he needs to throw this whole thing in the garbage. Why, then, does he feel sick at the thought of ending his arrangement with Steve?

He knows he doesn’t like Steve, of course, not _really_ , so it’s not that. For a second, he wonders: what would happen if he did? What’s the worst that could happen? The worst immediately slams into him like a kick to the ribs—an image of ridicule, of bemused entertainment, of rejection, of disgust. 

He scrubs the sweat off his face with a towel and looks in the mirror. Some vulnerable, raw and hidden part of him screams out for attention, and he tells it to _shut up_ and man up, the voice in his head hitting all the same dissonant notes as his father. 

This is all about power, that’s all. Harrington is fucking with him, is fucking _pushing_ him. Billy needs to put him in his place, needs to show that this all works best when they keep it transactional—clean lines, hard dicks, nothing else.

—

Billy feels ready, determined, his head screwed back on, and his priorities sorted. So when he crowds Steve into a bathroom stall during lunch hour, he’s utterly wrongfooted when Steve takes a quick step back and says “I’ve got a lot of stuff to do, man.”

"Stuff?" Billy asks. “You've got a lot of _stuff_ to do?” 

Steve runs a hand through his hair, eyes darting around the stall. “Yeah, I mean, I’ve got test prep, I’ve got that thing I told my mom I’d—” 

Billy holds out one hand and then the other. “My dick,” he says. “ _Your mom_. Fuck you if that you think that’s any kind of choice.”

Steve grunts a hint of an apology and squeezes past, the door squeaking and closing behind him. Billy stands, staring into space.

—

He tries to wait it out, confident that Steve will come back. He waits for the rest of the day, and the next, until it’s almost the weekend. Finally, he breaks, cornering Steve after practice and pushing into his personal space. “You dumping me, princess?” he asks, feeling the sting of a real question hidden under thick layers of disdain.

“Okay, wow, this is awkward,” Steve says, shifting from foot to foot.

“No big deal,” Bill says. “I just need to know if I should go find another hole somewhere.” He’s shooting for mercenary and impatient, but there’s a nervous flutter in his chest. 

“Look,” Steve starts again, visibly uncomfortable. “What we’ve been doing, I just… I mean—fuck, I just don’t feel _good_ about it anymore, you know? It’s so impersonal.”

“Is that a fifty-cent word for feeling like a used-up slut, Harrington?” Billy asks, lip curling. “Am I hurting your feelings?”

Steve looks trapped. “Kind of, yeah.”

“Are you kidding? Like you weren’t using me?” 

Steve opens his mouth and seems to think better of it, pursing his lips. He thinks for a moment. “Yeah, I guess I was,” he says finally. “I guess we were using each other. And I think I’ve lost the taste for it.” 

What Billy hears is: _I don’t want you_. What he hears is: _I’ll find something better_. And so he pushes the rising surge of bile back down and rolls his eyes, turning away. 

“Whatever,” he says over his shoulder. “I mean, it’s not like we get along. Have fun jerking off.”

As he lets the door slam behind him, he finds himself thinking of the times when they’ve laughed together, almost by accident. The times they’ve even _talked_ a little before they realized what they were doing. The things he wants to tell Steve. The things he wants to know.

He punches the wall.

—

Weeks blur together. 

Billy feels bereft, and he fucking hates it. He doesn’t know what this means, barely even wants to think about what it _might_ mean—all he knows is that he can’t stop thinking about Steve and it’s driving him crazy. He volleys between wanting to purge the feeling from himself like a sickness and obsessively wanting to induce it like he’s picking at a wound.

He’s not some virgin bride who can’t understand the concept of sex with no strings attached, and Steve Harrington is a fucking moron. Yet somehow, Billy feels unrelentingly hungry for him, like they could screw for days and he’d still come out starving. Strangely, though, it’s other memories that make his gut flip—like memories of making a dirty joke and pretending not to care when Steve laughed. It’s pathetic, and it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

It’s like something in him has unlocked, new needs and wants flooding in unchecked. Where before there was nothing, now there’s _Steve, Steve, Steve_. Harrington has wormed his way underneath Billy’s skin, and he feels stuck in it, drenched in it. 

—

They drift into summer, and his distress morphs into flatness. He collects dozens of phone numbers, reduces dozens of girls to flustered mush. He drives faster than he should, slams enough whiskey to make himself throw up several nights in a row, and it’s all just white noise. It doesn’t touch him. Everything feels so flat and dull that he might as well be asleep. He wonders if he’s losing his mind.

Eventually, he stops by Scoops just to test whether his dick is still working. The sight of Steve hits him like a nightmare, his stomach in knots. A girl stands in front of Billy in the line, twirling her hair as she peers down at the flavors. Steve is _looking_ at her with his big, coy eyes, and Billy itches to tell her to keep her fucking flirty bullshit to herself. 

“Sailor Steve,” he says when he reaches the front of the line.

Steve blinks in a brief flash of embarrassment. “Yeah, that’s me—ahoy,” Steve says. He’s clearly trying to be sarcastic, but his voice is coming out thin and reedy. “Do you—set sail, want to set sail—”

“You having a stroke, genius?”

Steve sighs. “What will it be, Hargrove?” he asks flatly.

 _Hargrove_. Not Billy. Fuck him.

“Just a scoop of chocolate to go.”

“Cone?”

“Cone.”

Steve makes up the order, exaggeratedly focused on the task of patting the ice cream into a perfectly rounded hump. He holds the cone out across the counter, looking somewhere to the left of Billy’s face. “There you go.”

Billy feels the touch of Steve’s hand like an electric shock as their fingers brush. Steve pulls back as though burned, wipes his hands on his shorts. Billy stares at him for a moment, their eyes locked, and then he grins humorlessly and turns away.

So, he thinks, he _can_ still feel something after all. The only problem is that it’s the last thing on earth he wants to feel.

—

Frustration makes Billy rash. He needs to feel _normal_ again, and if that means breaking this deadlock with Harrington, then so be it. He knows Steve still wants him, and he’s going to make him admit it so they can fuck this out and move the fuck on. That’s the new plan—if he can’t get rid of these feelings, he’s going to burn through them, burn them out so he can get his fucking life back.

The next time he swaggers into Scoops, he’s in dark jeans so tight that they look sprayed on, and he’s wearing a white tank top that clings to the muscles of his chest and stomach. He knows he looks hot. 

Steve swallows, looking at his mouth. “Billy.”

_Bingo._

“Got it in one. Are you gonna serve me or what?”

Steve pauses, and Billy knows he’s seeing a flash of himself kneeling between Billy’s thighs, one hand on his zipper. _Are you gonna serve me?_

“What can I get for—”

“Vanilla,” Billy says, the barest hint of a smirk tugging at his lips.

“Just one scoop again?” Steve asks. _Again_ , Billy thinks. _He’s paying attention._

“Gotta keep in shape, amigo,” he says, slapping his abs with an audible smack. He watches Steve flinch, delighted. 

“To take away?”

“Nah, I think I’m going to stay awhile,” Billy says, and he winks before turning away.

Billy bides his time, sitting directly in Steve’s line of sight. When Steve’s gaze flickers back to him, Billy sees him nearly drop the money in his hand. Billy sits with his legs splayed and a hand on his left knee. He’s licking half-melted ice cream that’s oozing down his cone, tongue curling around the side. He knows his lips are shiny, a sticky smear of vanilla on his bottom lip. Let Steve look at it, let him itch to wipe it away with his thumb. Let Steve remember all the times he came across Billy’s skin, his face, his mouth.

The look Steve gives him is pure heat, and he finally walks over. He’s wearing these absurd little shorts, and Billy can’t focus too hard on that or he’ll get arrested for frightening the local children. 

“You coming to Jason’s party this weekend?” Steve asks.

Billy gives him a perfect poker face. “Why would I?” 

Steve ducks his head, the faintest suggestion of disappointment. “No reason.”

Slowly and deliberately, Billy tips his empty soda can off the table, sends it skittering along the floor. “Oops,” he says.

Steve sighs, leaning down to pick it up. Billy touches the toe of his boot to Steve’s wrist with just the vaguest hint of downward pressure. “Thanks, Harrington,” he drawls as Steve looks up. 

There’s a beat of eye contact. “Why don’t I drop by later instead?” Steve asks, his affected casualness at odds with his wide pupils and the flush on his cheeks.

“Why don’t you?” Billy challenges. He knows Steve will, and that knowledge is the best high he’s ever felt.

—

When Steve rings the bell, Billy half considers not answering. A voice in his head says _don’t_ , tells him to leave Steve hanging and walk away with some kind of win. But he’s walking to the door before he means to, and then it’s open, and there’s no going back. Steve pauses on the step, looks him up and down. Billy knows he looks good, probably better even than he did in the afternoon, doused in fresh cologne and his shirt open to his navel.

He tosses his lit cigarette onto the front step and viciously stubs it out with his heel. “Come in before someone thinks I’m your friend or something.”

“Like you said, we’re not friends,” Steve points out. “Everyone knows that.”

“We’re not anything,” Billy snaps. He doesn’t mean to say it, doesn’t _mean it_ at all, but he feels edgy and raw like Steve could hurt him without even trying.

Steve shoves his hands into his pockets, hunches his shoulders a little. “I wouldn’t say that. I’ve thought about it and I—uh—I think we’re something.”

“You do, huh?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, taking a loud, uneven breath, “Because... I can't believe I'm saying this... because I think I actually fucking like you. I didn’t mean to, and I don’t want to, and I _shouldn’t_ , and I’m sure I’d probably be better off if I didn’t, but I do.”

Something in Billy’s chest leaps, and he feels slightly queasy. “What if I don’t like you, shithead?”

“Well, maybe you do, maybe you don’t. I’m okay with that. I just know I want to be here, and I don’t want to be fucking stupid about it anymore.”

He steps forward, holding Billy’s gaze. Billy swallows—a dry, convulsive gulp. He can feel Steve’s breath against his lips, knows it would be so easy to lean in a little and close the gap. He wants to be here, too. Wants to find out what this is, this feeling that’s twisted him up and made him lose half his mind.

“Okay, kiss me,” Billy mutters, mouth once again acting without the permission of his mind. 

Steve stares, dumb and wide-eyed. “What?”

“Fucking _kiss_ me, Harrington, before I change my mind.”

Steve doesn’t need any more encouragement. He takes Billy’s face in his hands like some melodramatic romance novel hero, and he presses their mouths together. Billy parts his lips and Steve slides his tongue in, soft and deliberate, kisses him for long minutes without trying to escalate it. Eventually, his hands tangle in Billy’s hair, one thigh pressing between his legs. Billy is hard, but it’s like it doesn’t really even matter somehow. He just lets Steve kiss him, and it’s shocking how easy it is when he stops _fighting_ how easy it is.

When they make it to the bedroom, they stand and look at each other for a minute, uncertainty pinging back and forth between them. Steve’s pants are tented obscenely, making him look absurd and hot at the same time.

Out of habit, Billy tries to flip him over onto his stomach. “Stop,” Steve says, pulling Billy down on top of him instead. “I want you to see what you do to me.”

“Don’t make it weird,” Billy says like a reflex, hands on either side of Steve’s head.

Steve looks at up at him, nothing but honesty in his eyes. “Billy,” he says quietly. “Don’t make it something other than what it is.”

The words resonate on some primitive level that makes Billy feel like a child. Still, he reaches into the recesses of his bravado, and he grins. “Enough playing shrink, dipshit,” he says and leans down to kiss the life out of Steve, blindly grabbing for the lube in his bedside drawer.

And for the first time, he does see what he does to Steve, or perhaps he _lets_ himself see what he does to Steve. Steve looks rapturous, lost to it, uninhibited and fearless. On his face, weakness looks like a kind of strength. Somewhere at the back of Billy’s mind, he wonders if maybe it could be that way for him too someday.

He thinks for a moment that Steve might be expecting him to be gentle or something, but he’s not there yet—not ready to look into Steve’s eyes and _make love_ or whatever. So he fucks Steve hard and deep, wrings groans and sighs out of him, grabs his right thigh and pushes it up, spreading his legs wide. But this time, when Billy starts to feel that ache, begins to tremble with that swelling feeling that used to make him want to cry, he doesn’t push it away. He leans into it, lets it fill him up until he’s glowing with it. 

And when he’s about to come, when he’s so close he can taste it, he reaches out for Steve’s hand. He laces their fingers together and _squeezes_ , puts all the torment of the last few months into his grip. Steve moans like Billy is sucking his goddamn dick, not holding his fucking hand, and Billy’s breath catches in his throat. He comes in waves, hot and electric. His whole body pulses with it, and he chokes out Steve’s name.

—

It’s slightly awkward in the aftermath as they disentangle their sticky limbs. The room is quiet and still. Something new sits between them—something bright and brittle. 

Steve starts to get dressed. “Should I get going? Or do you think you’re good for another round?” he asks, flipping his collar down.

“Nah,” Billy says, stacking the pillows and lounging back against them. His heart pounds underneath his casual facade, and he takes a deep breath like he’s about to plunge off a diving board. “I thought we could watch a movie.”

Steve looks at him, and this slow smile spreads across his stupid, beautiful face, a smile like the sun coming out. He looks like a kid on Christmas morning or a guy who has won the lottery, and for a moment Billy can’t believe it. He can’t believe he can make a person’s face _change_ like that, just by giving them a little bit of himself. 

“Yeah,” Steve says, still smiling. “Count me in.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I’ve never written anything for this fandom before and I’m feeling a bit rusty in general, so I struggled to find the balls to complete and post this story. Thank you for taking the time to read it!


End file.
